The Stoic

and the phase of potentiality ‘the night of Brahma.’ The creatures inhabiting the world, subject to these cycles, are perpetually being reborn and redissolved, with each succeeding cosmic day and night. This dissolution should not, however, be thought of as ‘going back to God.’ The creature merely returns to the power of Brahman which sent it forth, and remains there in an unmanifested state until the time comes for its re-manifestation.

“Hinduism accepts the belief in many divine incarnations, including Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus, and foresees that there will be many more.”

In every age I come back
To deliver the holy,
To destroy the sin of the sinner,
To establish righteousness.

And then, one day, came the last words spoken to Berenice by the Guru. For, as he knew, her call had come, and she was about to leave him.

“Now I have taught you that wisdom which is the secret of secrets,” he said. “Ponder it carefully. Then act as you think best. For according to Brahman, he who is free from delusion, and knows me as the supreme Reality, knows all that can be known. Therefore he adores me with his whole heart.

“This is the most sacred of all the truths I have taught you. He who has realized it becomes truly wise. The purpose of his life is fulfilled.”

Chapter 79

The following year was spent by Berenice and her mother traveling over a good part of India, because they were anxious to see and know more of that fascinating country. Although she had devoted four years of her life to the serious study of Hindu philosophy, she had seen enough of the way in which the natives lived to realize that this was a deluded and neglected people, and she wanted to know everything she could learn about them before her return home.

And so, by degrees, they extended their travels to Jaipur, Cawnpore, Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Amritsar, Nepal, New Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, as well as to the southern border of Tibet. And the farther they traveled, the more shocked was Berenice by the low mental and social status of the millions of inhabitants of this startling and perplexing land. She was puzzled as to how a country could have evolved such a noble and profoundly religious philosophy of life and yet, at the same time, have evoked and maintained such a low, cruel, and oppressive social system, whereby a few managed to live a princely existence while millions struggled for even less than bread. The stark disillusion of such a sharp contrast was too much for Berenice to comprehend.

For she saw streets and roads lined with dirty, ragged or naked and seemingly despairing beggars, some of them begging for alms for the migratory holy men of whom they were disciples. In some regions the types of mental and physical destitution were without parallel. In one village almost the entire population was stricken with a plague, yet, possessing no source of aid or relief, was allowed to die. Again, in many hamlets, it was common to find as many as thirty persons occupying one small room, the consequences being disease and famine. And yet when windows or openings of any kind were cut in their rooms, they sealed them up.

The worst of the social ills, to Berenice, was the shocking practice of the child-wife custom. In fact, the result of this custom had already reduced the majority of the child wives of India to a physical and mental state that could scarcely be compared to health or sanity, and their ensuing deaths were more of a blessing than an injury.

The deplorable problem of the untouchables caused Berenice to inquire as to the origin of this idea. She was told that when the light-skinned ancestors of the present Hindus first came to India, they found there a darker, thicker-featured native race, the Dravidians, builders of the great temples of the south. And the priests of the newcomers desired that the blood of their people be not mixed with the native stock but be kept of one strain. They therefore declared the Dravidians to be unclean, “untouchable.” So, in the beginning, race hatred was the origin of untouchability!

And yet, as Berenice was told, Gandhi had once said:

“Untouchability in India is on its way out, and in spite of all opposition, going fast. It has degraded Indian humanity. The ‘untouchables’ are treated as if less than beasts. Their very shadow defiles the name of God. I am as strong or stronger in denouncing untouchability as I am in denouncing British methods imposed on India. Untouchability, for me, is more insufferable than British rule. If Hinduism hugs untouchability, then Hinduism is dead and gone.”

But Berenice had seen several of the young untouchable mothers with their puny infants, always in the far distance, looking wistfully and sadly at her as she stood talking with a Hindu instructor. And she could not help but observe how sensitive of face and form some of them were. In fact, one or two of them looked to her about as any ordinary but attractive and intelligent American girl might look if she were exposed to the filth, neglect, and isolation of her Indian sister. And yet, as she had heard, there had been five million untouchables freed from the curse through becoming Christians.

Added to this, Berenice was forced to witness the pitiable plight of so many of the children, little starvelings, groping about, weakened and emaciated beyond recovery by malnutrition, neglect, and disease. She was spiritually lacerated, and there sprang into her mind the assurance of the Gurus that God, Brahman, was all Existence, Bliss. If so, where was He? The thought stayed with her until it became all but unbearable, when suddenly there flamed the counterthought that this degradation must be met and overcome. And was not the All in All God speaking and directing her thus to assist, aid, change, until this earthly phase of Himself would be altered or transmuted into the exchange of evil for good? She wished so with all her heart.

The time eventually arrived when Berenice and her mother, shocked and tortured by the impact of these endless scenes of misery, felt that they must return to America where they would have more time and peace to meditate on all they had seen, and the means of aiding, if possible, in the elimination of such mass wretchedness.

And so their return home, one bright, warm October day, on the S. S. Halliwell direct from Lisbon, arriving in the lower harbor of New York and steaming up the Hudson to dock at Twenty-third Street. As they cruised slowly along, paralleling the familiar towering skyline of the city, Berenice became lost in thought of the enormous contrast which her years in India was now presenting to her. Here were clean streets, tall, expensive buildings, power, wealth, material comforts of all descriptions, well-fed and well-dressed people. She felt that she had changed, but what that change was comprised of she was not as yet aware. She had seen hunger in its ugliest form, and she could not forget it. Nor could she forget the haunting expressions of some of the faces she had looked into, especially the children’s. What, if anything, could be done about it?

And yet, this was her country, her native land, which she loved more than any soil in the world. And for reason of this her heart throbbed a little faster at the most commonplace sights, such as, for instance, the endless advertising signs and their pretense to values which, even when blared in color or type twelve inches high, were still so often non-existent; the loud shrill cries of the newsboys; the raucous horns of the taxis, autos, and trucks; and the vanity and show of the average American traveler, with often so little to substantiate it.

After deciding to take residence at the Plaza Hotel, for a few weeks at least, she and her mother declared their baggage and later climbed into a taxi with a happy sense of being home at last. Berenice’s first impulse, after they were settled in their hotel suite, was to call on Dr. James. She longed to talk to him about Cowperwood, herself, India, and everything pertaining to the past, as well as her own future. And when she saw him in his private office in his home on West Eightieth Street, she was overjoyed by his warm and cordial reception and his very great interest in all she had to tell about her travels and experiences.

At the same time, he felt that she was wanting to hear everything relating to Cowperwood’s estate. And as much as he disliked reviewing the unsatisfactory handling of the entire affair, he felt it his duty to explain to her exactly what had happened during her absence. Hence, first he told her of Aileen’s death a few months before. This greatly shocked and surprised Berenice, for she had always thought of Aileen as the one to carry out Cowperwood’s